Col. Douglas Macgregor: How Close is WWIII? (Transcript)

The Israelis attacked and the US attacked.

Now, it appears that at least one version of this, the Israelis and the Americans lured Hamas into believing that negotiations would take place only to have them killed in a residential neighborhood of a neutral country. How violative of international law is that?

International Law Violations and Strategic Implications

COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: Well, the Israelis will tell you that no one in the Middle East is neutral and that everyone is effectively their enemy and has to be watched carefully. This is the basis for their strategy of Balkanization, to turn the region into a mess that has no structure and cannot possibly right itself. So I don’t think we should be surprised by this.

But here’s something that we all need to consider carefully. President Trump doesn’t have a national security advisor at the moment. Remember, he simply assigned that task to Secretary of State Rubio. Secretary of State Rubio is allegedly or reportedly the man behind the proposed intervention against Venezuela. That seems to be at the top of his list of important targets.

I don’t know what he knew, but normally a National Security Advisor would be one of the first people to learn of this intention and under the circumstances, that National Security Advisor would walk into the Oval Office and said, “Sir, this is something of which you need to be aware. You may want to intervene to stop this, given the fact that this is sovereign national territory of a state that is not hostile to us, it’s actually friendly to the United States. And this could precipitate crises over which we may not have much control in the region.”

But there is no National Security Advisor like that that’s going to walk in and tell the president that. And the people that are on the National Security Council staff are almost universally Zionists in their orientation. Many of them are dual citizens. So I don’t know where President Trump would turn for an objective assessment. And I doubt seriously that Secretary Hegseth was deeply involved in any of this.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Here’s what Prime Minister Netanyahu said: “Today’s action against the top terrorist chieftains of Hamas was a wholly independent Israeli operation. Israel initiated it, Israel conducted it, and Israel takes full responsibility.” That’s just an hour ago, Eastern time. Isn’t it true that the United States controls the airspace over Qatar?

COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: Well, we certainly have visibility of it, and de facto control is highly probable. But nothing like this could happen without us figuring it out pretty quickly. I think this is a statement by President Netanyahu that is designed to get Donald Trump off the hook, to essentially avoid any responsibility being shifted to Washington.

But the truth is, nothing happens over there with the Israelis without our unconditional support. So, you know, he can take full responsibility. But that’s the same as saying, we have nothing to do with what’s happening in Gaza, but we’re providing whatever support the Israelis want for the operation.

Potential Israeli Attack on Iran

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: When you and I spoke last, you were confident in your view that the Israelis are preparing an attack on Iran. Do you still feel the same way?

COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: Oh, absolutely. No question about it. And we are shipping critical material support to Israel in preparation for that. Nobody knows exactly when it’ll happen. I thought probably before the end of September or beginning of October. Most people say certainly no later than December. So we have a window.

The question is, does that make any sense? If you’re an Israeli looking at what’s going on on the ground in Iran, because Iranian integrated air defenses are improving dramatically. They have a lot of new material as well. If anything, Iran is going to be much more formidable this time than it was before.

But we also see a lot of activity at Dimona, the nuclear development site inside Israel. Conceivably Israelis could plan the use of some sort of nuclear weapon. Who knows? Anything is possible now.

Qatar’s Response and Regional Implications

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: From the Qatari Foreign Minister: “The State of Qatar strongly condemns the cowardly Israeli attack that targeted residential buildings housing several members of the political bureau of Hamas and the Qatari capital, Doha. This criminal assault constitutes a blatant violation of all international laws and norms and poses a serious threat to the security and safety of Qataris and residents of Qatar.

The Ministry affirms that the security forces, civil defense and relevant authorities immediately began addressing the incident and taking necessary measures to contain its repercussions and ensure the safety of residents and the surrounding areas. While the State of Qatar strongly condemns this assault, it confirms that it will not tolerate the reckless Israeli behavior and the ongoing disruption of regional security, nor any act that targets its security and sovereignty. Investigations are underway at the highest level and further details will be announced as soon as they are available.”

Has Qatar been providing a neutral forum for the negotiations with Hamas and Israel?

COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: Well, it depends on your definition of neutral. The Kushner Trump families have extensive financial interests in Qatar. I think Mr. Witkoff is probably part of that in some way. I don’t know that I would characterize Qatar as entirely neutral.

I think Qatar is like most of the peninsular Arab states. They would just as soon see this war in Israel with the Palestinians end, but they’re not going to put themselves at risk to help the Palestinians or assist them in any way. So are they neutral? Let’s put it this way, they’re not hostile necessarily to Hamas and certainly not hostile to the Palestinians. But I don’t think I would call them completely neutral.

Now, this incident, if it involved the deaths of a number of people, we don’t know what the casualties were, we don’t know how many people were killed. We don’t know exactly what happened to the negotiating team. There are conflicting reports, but this could certainly have an impact on our relations with Qatar in a very negative fashion. We may not be able to go there in the future. We may have to find somewhere else to go.

But I don’t think anybody is completely surprised. The Israelis are simply more brazen than ever before because there is no one out there to enforce international law in any way, shape or form. Although Putin has made a number of statements recently indicated that depending upon what the Israelis do in the future vis-à-vis Iran and other countries in the region, that the Russians may be willing to intervene militarily. We don’t know.

Ukraine Conflict Assessment

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Switching to Ukraine, how near to the end is the special military operation, either because the Russians will have succeeded in their military goals or because the Ukrainian military won’t exist as a fighting force any longer?

COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: You know, this is a very important question, and I think the Russians are close to finishing the job, but they are watching other developments. Remember, this is really our war. We started it. And I’m talking about under the Biden administration. President Trump, instead of stopping it, is now doubling down on it.

His most recent comments about sanctions and the comments from his Secretary of the Treasury Bessent, are very disturbing because Bessent is now echoing the sentiments that we’ve been listening to for three years, that with this new round of sanctions, if we can discipline our allies and friends to join us, we’ll ultimately cause the collapse of the Russian economy. Well, I don’t think that’s going to happen.

But if you’re a Russian sitting in Moscow, in the inner circle with President Putin, you have to conclude that there has not only been no change on the part of President Trump, but this could actually be worse than what you were dealing with before. This affects what they decide to do, no doubt. And right now they have no certainty whatsoever that anyone is going to come forward.

Now, the good news for the Russians, let’s be frank about this, is that the globalist governments in places like Germany, France and England or Great Britain are falling apart for a whole range of reasons. And the globalists that are mightily responsible for this dramatic migration crisis are going to be tossed out of power. It’s not a question of if, only when.

We’re watching as Merz takes draconian measures to try and suppress and annihilate the Alternative for Germany. I think that’s going to backfire badly on him. And then you have Mr. Macron is now on his, what, fifth or sixth prime minister. If he tries to prevent the nationalist right from coming to power in France, he may well be removed. And of course, Starmer, we know where he is. And his economy, like the others, is not only bad, it’s in collapse.

So if you’re President Putin, you got to be careful not to overreact to us and our foolishness and instead probably exercise a little more patience, banking heavily on the very high probability that the new governments that come to power in Western Europe are going to be nationalistic and absolutely uninterested in any way, shape or form supporting a war against them.

Putin’s Strategic Patience

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: President Putin is known for his patience. But do you accept the thesis that he’s not patient because he’s virtuous? He’s patient because his goal is the methodical elimination of the Ukraine military so that Russia doesn’t have to go through this again, at least not for another generation.

COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: Oh, that’s true. But remember, he’s benefited enormously from our influence over military operations in Ukraine. Remember, the Americans who are, and our British allies, the senior officers from these two armies and air forces, have exerted tremendous influence over what the Ukrainian army does.

We have headquarters in Germany that are operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week, trying to direct Ukrainian operations. And we have done a marvelous job of accommodating Russian interests. And what I mean by that is sending the Ukrainians into the teeth of Russian strategic defenses in Eastern Ukraine.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Isn’t there an argument to be made that the end result is now certain? Why should another – fill in the blank, you can tell me better than I can give you – thousands Ukrainian young men die before the inevitable happens?

Unusual Developments in Ukraine

COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: I think that’s all that’s ongoing. Although, you know, we’ve seen that 13,000 Ukrainian men between the ages of 18 and 25 just a little over a week ago were suddenly released and allowed to cross the border from Ukraine into Poland, which was a rather strange development.

But now we’re also seeing settlements in southern Ukraine emerge. Places where the population has been either denuded or is very, very thin. And we’re seeing large numbers of Jews establish themselves in new communities. In fact, we have something on the Internet that talks about the appearance of police around a community in southern Ukraine wearing American-like police uniforms who are stopping anyone from going into the area who is not Jewish.

And the people that wanted to go in there were Americans, but obviously they were Christians. They were halted, turned around and sent away. We’ve always been hearing about this desire to create another Greater Israel in parts of Ukraine where at one point you had large numbers of Jews before the Second World War that were concentrated in places like Ukraine and part of Poland and southern Belarus.

This is very odd. Is this part of the larger plan that’s bankrolled by people like Larry Fink and others to create this? Is this an extension of Israel as it is today? I have no idea. But needless to say, I thought it was very odd to find a police force. It looked like they were the New Jersey State Police and insisting that if you weren’t a Jew, you couldn’t go into the area. I thought that was very odd. I don’t know what’s going on, but clearly numbers of Ukrainian men are at an all-time low.

Future of Ukraine

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Let’s suggest that the Ukrainian military gives up the ghost by the end of this year. Who or what do you think will run the government in the parts of Ukraine that will survive Russian acquisition?

Orban’s Three-Zone Ukraine Proposal

COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: Well, I’m sure you’ve listened to Orban in Hungary, gave a speech quite recently within the last couple of days, and said that behind the scenes there are talks about three zones. One zone in Ukraine, eastern Ukraine would be Russia. Then there would be some zone in between the Russian zone, and another that is effectively a neutral zone. And then finally in the western end of Ukraine, there would be a “Ukrainian European zone.”

And he was talking about whether or not this would work, but suggested that this is under discussion. Well, I can tell you right off the bat, if we think the Russians are going to tolerate the emergence of a Western Ukrainian government that is open to European influence and military power, he’s very much mistaken. It’s not going to happen.

You cross the border today into western Ukraine and you move towards Lvov in what used to be southern Galicia, and you’re going to be annihilated by Oreshniks or anything else that the Russians have that they want to use. So I don’t see that happening. But I thought it was interesting that he brought that up, and I’m sure he’s speaking truthfully. So you’re still having people looking at ways to divide this child that keeps NATO’s toe in the pond. That’s not going to happen.

Russian Position on Foreign Forces in Ukraine

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: This sounds suspiciously similar to General Kellogg’s plan of a couple of months ago. I mean, we know. Here’s Dmitry Peskov two days ago. Chris, cut number one.

VIDEO CLIP BEGINS:

DMITRY PESKOV: We consider it a danger for U.S. presence of international forces or any foreign forces or NATO country forces on the soil of Ukraine next to our borders. So in our understanding, it will not help us get closer to the solution of Ukrainian conflict.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: But why doesn’t Ukraine have the right—

COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: As far as Russia is concerned, to—

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: —invite whoever it wants, whichever soldiers it wants, onto its territory? I mean, Russia is inviting North Korean troops.

DMITRY PESKOV: Then it’s a danger for us. It’s a real danger for us because we are an enemy of NATO. North Korean troops are a danger to Ukraine written in NATO’s documents. So we cannot afford that. And we’ll do whatever is necessary to ensure our security.

VIDEO CLIP ENDS:

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Absolutely consistent with the public statements on the same subject matter from President Putin and from Foreign Minister Lavrov.

Western Media and the Austrian State Solution

COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: Well, Mr. Rosenberg, who works for the BBC, is simply an extension of the Starmer government and the Western globalist community. He’s fundamentally hostile to and anti-Russian. So his question has no basis in fact. We built up this monster in Ukraine, launched it against Russia. The Russians responded. The Russians have won the war. And the Russians have said, we will not tolerate any foreign forces on the territory of Ukraine.

This is why I, and people like Ambassador Freeman and many others have talked, and I think John Mearsheimer have talked about the Austrian state solution. And there’s no willingness in the west to accept that, because in their minds, that’s defeat. And it is, it’s defeat for the west because the west set off this bomb, blew this war wide open, and now it’s resulted in the destruction of, effectively Ukraine as a nation state and they’re trying to recover so that they can effectively stand up and say, see, we didn’t really lose. We have a part of Ukraine. It’s not going to happen. Absolutely off the table, impossible.

And again, that’s one of the reasons that I think President Putin will watch carefully what happens in Paris, London and Berlin, because as these governments collapse, eventually you’re going to get new nationalist governments. And when I say nationalist, I’m talking about Germany first, France first, Britain first. Governments that are concerned with their populations, their welfare, and are not interested in fighting a war in a faraway territory of which they know very little and have no vested interest. But Rosenberg is a good spokesman for the globalist camp, and that’s what he was doing.

Trump-Putin Meeting Assessment

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Is there anything good, anything furtherance toward peace accomplished by the Putin Trump meeting in Alaska?

COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: No. In fact, the more that you go back and reflect on it, you conclude this was another reality TV moment for President Trump. What President Trump wanted was not a meeting that would produce any tangible, concrete results because there was obviously no preparation, study before the meeting took place.

In fact, President Putin was asked just a few days ago, would you be willing to meet again with President Trump? And he said, well, of course, we’ve never rejected any request for a meeting. He said, however, we would prefer that the issues are carefully studied, that the team comes prepared with some proposals after reading ours and understanding our position, so that we could come out of the meeting with some sort of concrete solution or at least a step in that direction.

What he’s really saying is that this was an empty meeting. It didn’t last but a couple of hours because there was nothing to discuss. The Russians repeated, restated their positions, and we stood there and sat motionless and assumed that the Russians would be so impressed with the fighter aircraft on the tarmac and the overflight by the B2 that they would suddenly capitulate to whatever we wanted.

I think President Trump still is deluded in his thinking about our position in the international system versus Russia and the rest of the world. I don’t know how you fix that because I don’t see anybody coming to him and trying to lay out the facts. I just don’t see it.

Israeli Operations and Regional Reactions

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Back to Israel. More breaking news. U.S. officials green lit Qatari operation where Hamas leadership was targeted. Israeli officials tell the Post that’s the Netanyahu government at war with itself. This is 180 degrees from what Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office released an hour ago. Israeli officials told the Jerusalem Post that the US knew about the attack beforehand and approved it. No comments were made by any US Official yet.

Second, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman backs full support for Qatar after Israeli attack warns of dire consequences. What would that mean in his case?

COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: It’s hard to imagine. I mean, if there’s any of these little statelets on the Arabian Peninsula are largely powerless about the only thing they can do is intervene to prop up Erdogan and the Turks. The Turks are in a very difficult economic position. Inflation once again is rising out of control. They’re broke for all intents and purposes.

So they could intervene and prop up Erdogan because the one state in the region that has the military power to direct against the Israelis in defense of the Palestinians is Turkey. So that’s the only thing that springs to mind with me now.

I guess in view of what you just said, and I’m sure that you’re right, I don’t think the Israeli government is at war with itself. I don’t maybe, but I don’t think so. I think you have Bibi Netanyahu that made it clear to President Trump and the White House. Look, I’ll take responsibility for this. I’ll say we did it on our own, don’t worry about it. I’m sure that that was discussed in some forum. Obviously that doesn’t work for the reasons you and I already discussed.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Right.

COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: They undertake much of anything without us. And the answer is they can’t. But does this really make any difference to the Trump administration or for that matter to Congress? See, we’re back to the uniparty. There is no difference now between President Trump’s views and attitudes and behavior and Biden’s attitudes, opinions and behavior.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: None. Correct? Correct, sadly. But correct.

Rubio’s Latin America Policy

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Before we go. I mean, this is more absurdities over the weekend, Secretary Rubio announced that the State Department will be scrutinizing the social media of visa applicants from Latin America to see if they are secretly collaborating with the Chinese government. Where the devil is this going? And where is it coming from, aside from Rubio’s paranoia about all things Latin America?

COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: Look, Judge, I don’t know. I mean, China is the boogeyman inside the Beltway. If you want to point to a problem of some kind, so it’s China’s behind that. China, China, China. Remember when President Trump first ran for election back in 2016, he would stand up there and say, China, China. Well, we’re back to this nonsense.

And we were both at the RPI conference, and I said, everybody needs to come to terms with the reality that the Chinese are not behaving today any differently from the way they have over the last 2,000 years. And I learned this when I was in Japan and Korea. They said, do you see any Chinese in our universities, in our laboratories, industrial engineering centers, or anything else? I said, well, I don’t know. I said, no, there aren’t any there.

What are you doing? The Chinese have this long standing understanding, if you want to call it that, or standing procedure. When a Chinese leaves China, if he finds anything that’s of value, real value, that the motherland could use, it’s his job to either buy it or steal it and get it home. All the Chinese students that come to the United States understand that.

So the real issue is we’re not dealing with the normal espionage. We’re dealing with a culture and a way of life that, frankly, is not consistent with how we do business. And if you’re really worried about this sort of thing, then send them home, or limit the numbers that come in and carefully vet them.

But as far as Latin America is concerned, this sounds to me like a backhanded way to punish somebody down there who decided to do a deal in Brazil or Peru or Ecuador or Colombia or Venezuela or somewhere else with the Chinese. I mean, we know right now that the Venezuelans are putting together arrangements for the Chinese to come into Venezuela, repair and restore the oil and gas infrastructure, in return for which, obviously, the Chinese are interested in oil and gas.

That may not be the only thing, and everybody’s upset over that. But what we fail to point out is, look, we could be doing this with the Venezuelans. We’re the ones that have decided that the Venezuelan government is unacceptable to us. We’re the ones that won’t talk to them. We’re the ones that insist on regime change and keep trying to install our puppet.

This stuff has got to stop. It’s a waste of time. These countries are not going to change dramatically on the basis of threats from us or through our military intervention, as we’ve learned. But we don’t see it that way. So instead of behaving rationally, we’re doing what you just outlined. And I guess this is Secretary Rubio acting in his national security vein. I don’t know.

Light Moment and Upcoming Event

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Just for a little bit of a light aspect, viewers are writing in. Is Qatar going to ask for its jet back?

COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: Well, I’m sure that somebody is covering every inch of the airplane to look for listening devices because obviously Qatar will transmit whatever it discovers on the plane back to China. Right, right. Who knows?

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Yeah, Chris, just put up a full screen. You and I will be together with some other wonderful folks in Dallas on October 4th at the Frontiers of Flight Museum starting a national conversation about why the two party system has failed us domestically and foreign policy wise.

COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: Yeah, I think there’s a lot to talk about and Natalie Brunel is going to have her hands full talking about the financial aspects because of Yellen’s attempt to change from long term debt to short term debt by going to T bills instead of treasuries because obviously people don’t want to buy any long term debt anymore.

So we’re trying to sell the debt for 52 weeks or 30 weeks and 40 weeks and rapidly turn it over as though that is going to disguise our true position. And of course now we have a lot of interest in crypto and essentially using crypto as another means of dealing with our debt.

I think this is a very interesting time. I hope people pay attention and come to this. I’m sure they’ll have lots of questions and they’ll have an opportunity to express their opinions. Because after we speak, we’re going to hand people the mic after each of these questions and let them express their views. I hope they come because this is an experiment. This is, we hope, the beginning of something bigger. It’s a search judge, right. Way forward. The uniparty doesn’t work.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: I’m thrilled to be part of it and looking forward to it. Chris, if you want to put that up one more time, if you can take a screenshot and then scan, you see that little QR code there, you can find out more about this and get tickets if you’re going to be in the area. Colonel, thank you very much. I know we’re all over the place. I appreciate very much your time. Thank you. Best to you. And look forward to seeing you next week.

COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: Right. Thanks, Judge.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Thank you. Only halfway through this day. Coming up at 1:15 this afternoon, Scott Horton. Scott wrote the book on Ukraine called Provoked. How I wish people in the White House would read it or somebody would read it aloud to the President at 2 o’clock. Max Blumenthal at 3 o’clock. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.

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